When is a stoner comedy not a stoner comedy? When the pot-smoking, ’shroom-popping protagonist’s hallucinations are actually hauntings.
That’s the premise of the new Hulu series “Deadbeat,” which follows the exploits of a bumbling Brooklyn stoner whose hidden talent is the ability to chat with the dearly departed.
The 10-episode show, which debuts Wednesday, is difficult to classify. Co-creators Cody Heller and Brett Konner — who worked together as writers on the offbeat FX series “Wilfred” — see it as a unique mash-up of goofy pothead movies and popular spirit-hunting TV dramas.
“I guess if you categorize it as something, a supernatural comedy would be the closest,” Konner tells The Post. “We kind of tell people it’s like a stoner ‘Ghost Whisperer.’ ”
Filmed in New York, the series stars Tyler Labine as Kevin, a Washington Square Park newsstand operator who moonlights as a medium. The spirits he encounters all have unfinished business that slacker Kevin is seemingly unprepared to deal with, but he gives it a go anyway — with both hilarious and heartwarming results.
The spirits’ issues aren’t grandiose — nothing like a murdered ghost needing help to track down his assailant. Instead, they include a deceased hot dog-eating contest entrant who still yearns to topple the champ, and a young man who died a virgin and still hopes to somehow hook up with his girlfriend.
“We tried to find the most ‘Seinfeld’-ian ghost stories that we could,” Heller says.
Along the way, Kevin faces off with a beautiful, world-renowned medium named Camomile White — gamely played by “So You Think You Can Dance” host Cat Deeley in her first sitcom role — who he discovers is a villainous, fame-grabbing fraud.
Their dynamic and Kevin’s gift as a medium are more important than the stoner aspect, says Konner.
“The fact that he talks to ghosts is way more interesting than the fact that he is a deadbeat sort of druggie, so I think we kind of put more emphasis on his ability as a medium,” he says.
But the show is careful to avoid being a mere satire of spiritualists, adds Heller.
“I think it could easily become just a spoof of those ‘Ghost Whisperer’-type shows, but we try to go a little bit further with it,” she says of the program’s more serious scenes that ponder issues about life, death and the afterlife. “We enjoy exploring deeper themes and contrasting the comedy with more dramatic moments.”
Labine, a Canadian actor known for roles on shows including the demon-hunting 2007-09 CW comedy “Reaper,” says the show is evidence of the stoner comedy formula evolving alongside society’s views regarding marijuana.
Depictions, he says, are “not so niche and cartoonish anymore. It’s ultimately more relatable to everybody,” he says, adding with a laugh, “Not just a pot-shirt-wearing, patchouli-stinking, pot-smoking hippy. There are lawyers that come home after work and smoke a doobie after dinner, you know?”
The show’s relatability also connects with the public’s fascination with the paranormal — something already evidenced by the popularity of shows like “Long Island Medium” and “Ghost Hunters.”
Labine counts himself as a believer, admitting he encountered an otherworldly force while staying with friends who rented an old caretaker’s house at a Vancouver cemetery several years ago.
One night, while crashing on the couch, Labine repeatedly woke up, freezing cold — despite the fact that it was summer — with his blankets pulled down.
The last time he reached to pull them back up, terror struck.
“They tugged back!” he exclaims. “I got into this tussle with the blankets. It’s not like they’re just stuck — they were being pulled back.”
Spooked, he stayed in another room that night, and the next day his friends told him they rented the space specifically because it was rumored to be haunted. “We were literally partying on top of dead people in their back yard, so we may have asked for that one,” he says. “I still can’t believe it’s true — but it really happened.”
For her part, Heller says she has never encountered a spirit, but she keeps an open mind to the possibility. “I invite any of them to contact me,” she says. “If we get a second season, we’ll be casting.”